We spent a week doing carless commutes. Here’s what we learned. | Road Bike Clipless Pedals

Ten years ago, I commuted by bicycle from my St. Johns neighborhood home in Portland to downtown Vancouver. The highlight, if you want to call it that, was crossing the Interstate 5 Bridge.

One thing to note is it’s probably easier to have it on a frame without a fixed front mech braze on, the XT mech has a specific band on mount, so would suite you if you went to a titanium frame

I’ve 2 bikes with Di2, it’s faultless and you dontd need to buy brand new, most of my hardware is 2nd hand, and has been perfect.

More than this, there are certain aspects of clipless pedals that are downright insidious. Firstly, they make you lazy. Do you really need to be physically attached to your bike in order to ride it over a log? Do you really need special equipment to tell you where exactly to place your feet, like you’re slipping into the ass groove in your sofa? (This goes double if you had to pay a bike fit professional to help position that "ass groove" in the first place.) Secondly, clipless pedals engender a smug sense of superiority. Once you master clipless pedals, you look askance at any rider who has not, and on a certain level you feel your attachment to the bike reflects your commitment to the sport. They’re tentative noobs, whereas you’re like a captain ready to go down with the ship. "If this bike falls over I’m going with it!"

The guts of the pedal is a well-finished Aluminium body that houses serviceable cup and cone bearings. A metal cage is bolted on for riding in flats, and on the other side you get an adjustable tension SPD binding for when you’ve got your cleats on. The pedals are very well finished and run smoothly from the off, and the fact that they’re easy to strip down is a bonus.

“When people ask ‘What flat pedals?’ on the internet, these aren’t an option I’ve seen put forward before. More’s the pity, because I’m finding them great – even in the worst weather the UK has to offer. Perhaps that’s because NS Bikes’ home in Poland has a less temperate climate than the UK. First introduced in 2014, Radiance flat pedals seem to have had few to no revisions apart from the colours and a five gram reduction in claimed weight (395 down to 390g)…” Read the full review here.

Flats. When I became a mid life crisis mountain biker I read that clips were far superior and it was worth the few comedy moments when you bounced off the tarmac because you couldn’t get your feet out of the clips sin time. I decided my bones were too old for that kind of comedy and so went flats, mostly wellgo or superstar, and inov8 roclite boots whcih are excellent both riding and pushing.

Shimano shoes are generally quite generous with who they fit, and the XC5’s relaxed nature only adds to this reputation. With a more open heel design, a forgiving upper and a pliable sole, there’s certainly more leeway here than with a race shoe. However, a lack of width choices is perhaps as much a sign of the price as it is of demand. If your foot shape is at one extreme of the bell-curve, you’ll likely want to pursue something with additional width options.

Funn’s latest clipless pedals were an immediate hit with me. The platform is wider than on many competitors’ offerings, with a shape akin to a flat pedal.

*as this is road cc should point out that "The Rules" need to be considered and then ignored as practicality overules unless you do actually race

There are four grub-screw-style traction pins per side, which sit around 4mm off the platform. Once clipped in, I found that the height of the mechanism made the front pins somewhat redundant.

We still wanted to challenge our habits. For one week in December, some editors, reporters and producers agreed to leave their car at home and try a carless commute for a day into our downtown Phoenix newsroom, near Second and Van Buren streets.